theye1 wrote:
You do realize that 40% of the Greek Workforce is employed by the Greek government? What do you think will happen when the Greek government announces it can't pay the Wages of their workers, or that it can't pay the Pensions of it's citizens?
Which is what's going to happen anyway with the austerity cycle?
You got some kind of alternative? Unless you're predicting something miraculous happening within the next two years like Japan giving Greece a 450 billion euro grant, there is no freaking way to avoid this.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Theye1, it literally does not matter how bad defaulting is, because the austerity measures put them there anyway, just slightly later rather than sooner. Greece cannot recover with the ECB demanding they cut apart their government for (partially) the exact reason you just specified.
DSMatticus wrote:Theye1, it literally does not matter how bad defaulting is, because the austerity measures put them there anyway, just slightly later rather than sooner. Greece cannot recover with the ECB demanding they cut apart their government for (partially) the exact reason you just specified.
I know that defaulting is probably inevitable, but I just don't think will be all sunshine and rainbows for the Greeks, as some posters here believe.
Whipstitch wrote:Nobody believes that so quit wasting everyone's time.
Really? I was a little hyperbolic, perhaps, but FrankTrollman predicted positive growth for Greece in a few months, which is just ridiculous. People are making claims without any evidence and we're expected too go along with that?
It's not hard at all -- in fact it's almost so easy it's cheating -- to return to pre-recession levels of production. Hell, if you're looking at cynical growth rates the further you fell the faster you climb.
If Chile of all places was able to have annual growth in the 6-7% range after disposing of Pinochet and the Chicago Boys, why not Greece? I mean, granted, the economy fell so far that even this explosion in growth left them behind their Latin America neighbors so it's hard to paint the entire debacle as a success story, but Frank isn't exactly going out on a limb here by predicting that it will only take a few months for Greece to start experiencing positive growth again.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Greece GDP is like 15% down over the last four years. They would need several years of Chinese levels of growth to actually be recovered from their depression. That probably won't happen unless there is an actual bailout of grants rather than loans.
But the current situation they are in discourages private investment and ratchets government spending down every quarter and leaves the state still completely paralyzed by debt and gives the Germans plenty of leverage to force them to do bad policy. That is a huge clusterfuck, and it's "only" generating negative three percent growth. Shortly after that ends, of course growth is going to be positive! How could it not be?
The government has a primary surplus, the moment they right off their debt, they can do some counter-cyclic policy relative to what they are doing now even if markets won't lend them any money. Once the crisis is declared over, no matter how painful the default actually is, Greece will become a more attractive place to invest. If only because the net investment today is less than zero, and being more attractive than that is a very low target.
Positive growth is a ridiculously easy goal to set yourself. Technology continues to advance, so growth should be positive all the time. Only tremendous failures of policy can put growth at negative values for any serious length of time. To get negative growth for four years straight is a level of policy failure that four years ago people were literally saying it was no longer possible to have.
No one is saying that Greece is going to be fully recovered a few months after defaulting and leaving the Euro. We're saying that they will be having positive growth.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
So what do you guys think of the conspiracy theory that Syriza and its backers intentionally limited the amount of gains that they'd do in this electoral cycle so that they wouldn't be in the hot seat when the moronic and omission bias'd voting public decided to lash out at the most visible symbols of their oppression rather than looking for proximate causes?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
I think that there were 2 pro-bailout parties and four anti-bailout parties. The pro-bailout parties got 40% of the vote and the anti-bailout parties got 60% of the vote. The leading pro-bailout party got less than one percent more of the vote than the leading anti-bailout party, but because of the way Greek parliament seats are awarded (50 extra seats to the single biggest party, regardless of whether they are the biggest opinion bloc), the pro-Austerity parties got a slim majority of the seats. Nothing really surprising there. The surprising thing is that with only 2 establishment parties splitting the establishment vote and 4 anti-establishment parties splitting the anti-establishment vote, that Syrzia could come within 1%.
And yeah, if Germany wasn't threatening to throw a temper tantrum and destroy the entire Eurozone the next day if Syrzia had won, it's doubtful that New Democracy could have pulled it off even slitting their votes half as much as Syrzia. It really cannot be overstated how much the policies of the last four years have not worked.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
It's kind of more disturbing to me that they have actual plans for a complete collapse considering the shockwaves that would go through the global financial system.
I do believe that almost everyone has plans to limit their exposure to a grexit.
You'd be irresponsible not to, given the way most think that at least a Greek exit is inevitable, possibly followed by others, especially Finland.
I've been hearing liberals like Krugman and Kevin Drum saying that the banksters have really crossed the line and are actively encouraging bank panics to protect the overclass. What gives?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
The decision by Cyprus' 16 eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund to impose a one-time tax of 6.75 percent on all deposits under €100,000 and 9.9 percent over that amount has enraged Cypriot politicians, who have condemned it as unfair and disastrous. That brings into sharp doubt its approval in the 56-seat parliament.
That's right, they want to take a flat tax out of all the bank accounts in Cyprus. This doesn't do much to people with few savings. It doesn't do much to people who don't keep their money in bank accounts.
But it does fuck the entire middle class of Cyprus hardcore.
Last edited by sabs on Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
The decision by Cyprus' 16 eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund to impose a one-time tax of 6.75 percent on all deposits under €100,000 and 9.9 percent over that amount has enraged Cypriot politicians, who have condemned it as unfair and disastrous. That brings into sharp doubt its approval in the 56-seat parliament.
That's right, they want to take a flat tax out of all the bank accounts in Cyprus. This doesn't do much to people with few savings. It doesn't do much to people who don't keep their money in bank accounts.
But it does fuck the entire middle class of Cyprus hardcore.
It also means that if you care about your money at all, you will remove it from a Cyprus bank.
Mass withdrawals destroy banks because banks don't actually have your money. They loan it out and keep enough operating capital to handle the normal fluctuations in deposits and withdrawals (usually 10% of total deposits, but sometimes less). This means that a small number of people withdrawing money can destroy the bank and then everyone else loses all their money.
That's a "bank run."
Since Russian billionaires keep their money in Cyprus, there is a good chance that just them removing their money and putting it in the Cayman Islands or something will destroy all the Cyprus banks and remove the savings of Cyprus's people.... Cyprusites? Cryprusians? Whatever.
Last edited by K on Mon Mar 18, 2013 6:39 am, edited 3 times in total.
Agreed, but I don't see an obvious stopping point. Of course, it'll peter out at some point, but since imposing idiotic economic policies and sustaining them in spite of all evidence that they're not working seems to be the hip thing in Europe these days, there's no rational reason for either Cypriots to think it'll stop after one shot or for the other shaky countries to think they won't be next.
Krugman, unsurprisingly, is right. Maybe the reaction will be muted because dealing with cash you keep in your mattress is super annoying, but at best it's pissing in the eye of financial ruin. Getting away with it this time doesn't make it a swift move.
I do not understand how or why the Germans and Belgians could think this was a good idea. They managed to announce it over a Cypriot bank holiday, which is an extra special fuck you to everyone involved.
But it also lets everyone in Cyprus or who has any money in Cyprus prepare to pull all their money out. If you have any money in a Cypriot bank, why wouldn't you pull your money out at this point? If everyone pulls their money out, the 13 billion Euro bailout is going to be chump change. The Bank of Cyprus has a quarter of the Cypriot deposit market and has €42 Billion in assets by itself. A simple back of the envelope calculation is that the bailout that the Germans are currently balking at isn't a tenth as big as what the country would need if a good old fashioned high speed bank run goes down. And that's if it stays confined to Cyprus, which there is absolutely no reason to believe it would.
A very dangerous and puzzling game. The only thing I can think of is that the Germans are betting that a bank run will destroy the country AND that the Cypriot parliament is going to vote the plan down. And then they'll try to use it as a stick to keep the Italians and Greeks in line by claiming "those guys didn't take the austerity deal, and now they are all on fire". But even with a lap dog press in the BRD I can't see that working Europe-wide. The fact that the terms of this insane deal were cooked up by the European Commission will be and already is obvious to everyone.
German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a "no" vote by Cypriot lawmakers would have huge repercussions in the country.
"Then the Cypriot banks will no longer be solvent, and Cyprus will be in a very difficult situation," said Schaeuble, who insisted that every country involved in Europe's debt crisis is different. In the case of Cyprus, he said bank owners and investors had to participate in the rescue.
I am impressed. It takes a lot of stones to say something that is the exact opposite of true.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.
Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
